Page 44 of Searching for Nova

“Lucky for you,” he says, taking a puff of his cigarette, “I already found you something.”

“You found me a job?”

“Lenny did. His cousin needs someone to clean up. Mop floors. Take out the garbage. I figured if you can do it here, you do it somewhere else.”

“His cousin wants me to clean his house?”

“Not his house,” Ted says, like I’m stupid. “His business. You’ll work there on weekends and whenever he needs you during the week. It pays better than the diner so I want you to take whatever hours the guy offers you. Lenny says his cousin’s willing to start you with 20 hours a week and go up from there if you show up and do a good job.” He points at me. “Don’t you fuck this up, Nova. I got you this job and you’re gonna make me proud. You understand?”

He’s never been proud of me, not once. All he does is complain about me. One time a guy at the diner left a note on the table saying what a great job I was doing. I showed it to Ted and he told me the guy was just trying to sleep with me. I realized then that I’d never get Ted’s approval. He’ll always see me as a screwup like my dad.

“I can’t work 20 hours at the new job and keep working at the diner. I don’t have time.”

Ted leans toward me. “If you got time to be hanging out with boys and that friend of yours from school, you got time to work.”

He acts like I spend all my free time having fun with my friends. It’s not even close to the truth. I almost never have free time. When I’m not at school or work, I’m running errands for Ted, cleaning up after him, or making his meals. I only hang out with Mateo a couple times a week, and it’s usually only for an hour, if that. And I haven’t been out with my friend, Rielle, since she found out she was pregnant, which was four months ago. I see her at school, but we don’t hang out.

“You start tomorrow,” Ted says, leaning back in his chair. “The guy’s name is Rod. I left his number on the counter.” He motions behind him and I see a ripped piece of paper sitting on the kitchen counter next to the loaf of bread.

I get up and go to the kitchen. “What is this place? Where’s the job?”

“A skating rink,” Ted says. “He said it ain’t far from your school.”

I pick up the piece of paper and try to make out the phone number. Ted has a shaky hand so it’s hard to read anything he writes.

“Call him right now,” Ted orders, “so he knows you’ll be there tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday. I work at the diner Sunday mornings.”

“So tell him you’ll be there in the afternoon.” He huffs. “Fucking kids. Can’t figure out anything for themselves these days.”

Going to my room, I put the number in my phone, hoping what looks like a six isn’t a zero. They look the same in Ted’s shaky handwriting. I can’t believe he’s making me do this. It’s my senior year. Couldn’t he let me have a little fun my last year of high school? I haven’t been to a party at all this year. The one time I was invited to one, I had to work.

“Skolan Rink,” a guy answers. “What can I help you with?”

“I’m looking for Rod?”

“Speaking. What do you need?”

“This is Nova. Nova Morris. I think Lenny talked to you about me working there?”

“Oh, yeah. He did. You’re the kid who works at the diner.”

“Yeah. So um, what’s the job?” I ask, not trusting that what Ted said is accurate. He never gets stuff right.

“It’ll depend on the day. Could be cleaning the locker area. Answering phones. Helping kids during the parties.”

“Parties?”

“We do a lot of birthday parties. You’d need to help the kids with their skates, help set up the food, clean up afterwards, that type of thing.”

This job isn’t sounding that bad. Ted made it sound like I’d be spending all my time mopping floors and scrubbing toilets.

“We also do lessons, but you don’t need to do nothing for those. If there’s a lesson going on, I’ll probably have you clean up in back.”

“And what’s the pay?”

“Twelve an hour to start. If you do good, I might bump you up to thirteen. We’ll see how it goes.”

---